Association Marketing

As 2017 comes to a close, it is important to reflect on the past year and plan ahead for the future. While you set goals for the upcoming new year, whether they are personal or professional, it is important to stay on top of industry trends!

The experts in this report in Search Engine Journal mention Artificial Intelligence as a raging trend for 2018 (almost in the same breath as Instagram stories - which boast 200 million users daily); the point is bots (and ephemeral stories) are taking over the 2018 digital marketing trends reports. With the evolving A.I. and machine learning capabilities incorporated in platforms from marketing automation to data analysis and finally customer service; associations will gain the greatest edge utilizing personalized messaging and insights generated from smarter and smarter bots. According to Jess Nelson at MediaPost, “Artificial intelligence was the top-ranking technology that marketers planned to expand the most over the next two years, with Salesforce estimating that A.I. will grow 53% faster than any other type of technology.”

SEO is an important strategy to weave into your digital marketing landscape. It affects online visibility of your organization’s content in web search engines. “In it’s simplest form, SEO is the practice of growing your visibility and increasing traffic through organic search engine results” (Edgecomb, 2017).

When thinking about SEO, most organization’s consider keywords and lack to consider the quality of content that they are publishing. However, contrary to popular belief, that is not the case:

SEO is one of those words that you frequently hear in todays digital age. If you are already confused by the first line of this post, SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization, figure out what all that means here, then read this post!

If you’ve made to this point, you probably feel like you know SEO - you’ve worked with it, started to get a sense of what’s going on. Well, Google is constantly trying to up its game (which is to be expected, it is Google) and as fast as our iPhones stopped working when the iPhone X came out, Google has released updates to the algorithm.

A lot of associations spend too much time over-thinking their digital marketing strategies that they end up missing opportunities,” says Suzanne Carawan, Chief Marketing Officer with HighRoad Solution. “The truth is that consumers are far more forgiving in the digital space, so associations can worry less and take more risks.”

Communicating with members can be intimidating in the digital age. What if your email has a typo? What if your e-newsletter has a broken link? What if that new (and expensive) website simply doesn't click with your audience?

The short answer: Relax.

Simply put, it's OK to make mistakes; companies do it all the time. Whether it's sending emails with the odd misspelling, introducing online services that don't work perfectly at launch, or trying something new with their messaging that winds up falling flat.

And that's perfectly fine, says Carawan, because the need to keep the conversation going with one's audience outweighs the need to make sure that communication is perfect: “Maybe in the past someone would get fired for a typo in a print communication, but in the digital space it happens and you can go back and fix it immediately.”

Moreover, making a mistake doesn't have the same impact on a brand's reputation as it did a decade ago. The digital community is diverse, meaning it is much more inclusive and understanding than what marketers have traditionally been used to. As a result, associations are holding themselves to a standard that just doesn't exist anymore and all that worrying about making the wrong move is slowing them down.

“Slow and perfect gets beat by agile and good intent every time in today’s world,” states Carawan, adding, “Everyone is just trying to be heard, and very few people are going to judge you for trying something that fails. Think of online like the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars. We're all creatures from different parts of the galaxy and all we want to do is grab a drink and talk to real creatures about real things—that’s the value of a membership.”

That doesn't mean associations have permission to get sloppy. It is still possible to go too far the other way – particularly among older generation who might be a little less forgiving than their Gen X and Millennial peers. What it does mean is that associations have more leeway to experiment with new ideas and services, try new approaches with their social media, or take the leap with initiatives such as website upgrades and digital marketing campaigns. 

Furthermore, notes Carawan, just as members and online audiences are more forgiving, so too must employers give staff the benefit of the doubt: “Don't fire the 24-year old who just sent an email with an error in it, because to them, this stuff happens all the time. They won't understand why it's a big deal because they live in world of emojis, abbreviations, and casual social media messages.”

No doubt, it's a new age for association marketing. And while it can be comfortable to sit on new ideas or marketing campaigns until they're flawless, sometimes the best play is to pull the trigger.

After all, adds Carawan, “No one's perfect, and we're all just trying to communicate.”

Want to learn more about improving your member communications?